The CURA publications library is currently being digitized by the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy. When the project is complete, the entire CURA publications library will be online and fully searchable. Unfortunately, during this process we are not able to honor individual requests for publications . Additionally, we no longer have physical copies of publications to send out.

New publications are digitized daily and the publications catalog on the CURA website is not automatically updated with links to scanned copies, so please search the CURA collection at the Digital Conservancy for the publications you are looking for:

Home » Publications » The New Minnesotans: How Are They Doing in Economic Terms?

The New Minnesotans: How Are They Doing in Economic Terms?

Author:

Ahlburg, Dennis A., and Yong Nam Song.

A follow-up to a Fall 2004 CURA Reporter article on how Minnesotans fared during the economic expansion of the 1990s, this article focuses on the economic fortunes of Minnesota's foreign-born population during the same decade. The authors base their analysis on data from the Minnesota Public-Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) of the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses. In general, they found that although the average Minnesotan's economic lot improved during the 1990s, this was not the case for immigrants. Foreign-born Hispanics/Latinos experienced only a small decline in their poverty rate, and households originally from Sub-Saharan Africa were as likely to be poor in 2000 as in 1990. Foreign-born Hispanics/Latinos lost ground relative to U.S.-born Hispanics/Latinos. When considering only the quality of the job held by the head of the household, foreign-born Hispanics/Latinos still fared worse than their U.S.-born counterparts, but Sub-Saharan Africans made some gains relative to U.S.-born Blacks. Although some of these changes in fortunes and differences among groups can be explained by measurable differences in attributes valued in the labor market, such as education, work experience, and English-language skills, significant differences remain unexplained. The authors conclude that it is possible that over time, new immigrants will move into the economic mainstream as others before them have done, but gaps in skills and the possibility of discrimination may slow such progress.

Journal:

CURA Reporter

Publication date:

2005

Publisher:

Minneapolis: Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), University of Minnesota.